According to my iPhone’s logs, I’ve spent just short of 15 minutes actually phoning people since it came into my possession. Then again, charging is a daily ritual as I consistently manage to drain the battery by about midnight.

Much of my battery is spent either browsing the web from the comfort of my palm, sifting through email or trying out a selection of the thousands of apps available for the platform. In particular, I find many photo sharing and styling apps fun to play with, and great for quickly uploading something interesting.

Snapping, Styling & Sharing

Snapbucket is laid out in an almost identical manner to Instagram, with quick access to the shutter, images already on your device, settings and tips along the bottom of the screen. Once you’ve launched the app it’s good to go – simply touch that big, inviting camera button to capture the scene.
Next you’ll be able to customize your image, with whole style sets as well as individual filters and personal touches to choose from (more on this later). Again, at this stage (iOS users) you’ll be forgiven for thinking you’re still in Instagram – it all looks pretty familiar.
Once you’ve completed your work of art then it’s a simple case of signing up (or logging in, should you already have an account), labelling and sharing it amongst your friends. You can add a description of where you took the photo, though Snapbucket also supports geo-tagging, and will ask you to allow location detection on first boot.
If you’d like to share your images with your friends then try connecting your Twitter or Facebook accounts (you can toggle sharing from the upload screen) to instantly notify your online cohorts. You can also embrace the past and choose to email your picture to whoever you want, if that’s your style.

Just Another Instagram?

No, actually.

Snapbucket distances itself from being just another Instagram with a couple of unique touches, including greater control over your end result.

Instagram only lets you choose one style, chopped to a square crop. Snapbucket provides multiple filters, effects, vignettes and frames which can be stacked on top of each other for some fairly original results. You can also choose from a collection of predefined sets, which are cleverly selected individual effects designed to recreate classic, retro looks.
Once you’ve found a couple of combinations you like, you can save custom sets for quick access later. Snapbucket does not feature a square crop mode, though you can of course use images already on your device (regardless of orientation or size).

The more you use Snapbucket, the more effects you’ll have access to. Even after just uploading one image, I managed to unlock the “Sky” set, a blue filter, and both the sunlight and purple light leak effects.
It’s certainly not a bad way of encouraging users to take lots of pictures, and who can complain when both the app and image hosting are free?

Download

Android and iOS users can make use of Snapbucket, with versions available on both the App Store and Android Market:

Conclusion

For Android users who haven’t had chance to play around with the wonderful Instagram, then Snapbucket is a worthy alternative. For iOS users who are slightly bored of the same old effects, Snapbucket offers great customization and rewards prolonged use with even more styles to choose from.

Just for fun I’ve processed the same image in both Instagram and Snapbucket, and though I didn’t spend ages tweaking either result, the following pictures provide a decent comparison of the two:

Snapbucket:

Instagram:

If you like taking photos on the go, like to go faux-retro chic and want the ability to share your creations; Snapbucket is definitely worth the download, and the price is spot-on.

Have you tried Snapbucket? Do you prefer Instagram? Any other photo styling and sharing apps you love? Share your thoughts and images in the comments below!

Once you launch the app there is a camera icon, and the app resembles a viewfinder. Hit the camera button to take a picture, then you can go through the extra tabs at the bottom adding effects, frames and so on before hitting "Save Snap" to upload/save to your device.

Ok you'll need either an Apple or Android device. If you've got an iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch make sure you've updated the device (in iTunes) to the latest firmware.

For an Android device (HTC, Samsung etc...) you'll need version 2.1 of the operating system. I'm not sure how to check on an Android but if your device is relatively new (or was recently updated) you should be fine.

On your device open up whatever it is you use to download apps - either the App Store or Android Market. Make a search for "Snapbucket" and it should be the top result. Install the application and run. You'll need a photobucket account to save images to the web, but this is actually really easy to set up from within the app.

Once you're ready to go hit the middle "Share" button and your camera should kick in. Take a picture, play around with the filters and various settings until you're happy then save. The image will be automatically added to your photobucket account and you can share, view and more through a normal web browser on your PC.